No regrets, says Bob Carr, despite 'bargain with the devil' on poker machines

By Michael Koziol & Nigel Gladstone

4 July 2018 — 11:27pm

Former NSW premier Bob Carr says he does not regret flooding the state's pubs with poker machines, but has acknowledged the social cost from what he describes as a "bargain with the devil".

Mr Carr said there had been little community opposition to his 1997 decision to allow pokies into NSW hotels, which now house 23,000 of the state's 95,000 machines.

Former NSW premier Bob Carr.Credit:Alex Ellinghausen

"If I had my time again, I can’t say I wouldn’t do it, because there's probably an employment base in hotels that’s been strengthened by the provision of this form of entertainment," Mr Carr told an audience at Sydney's Gleebooks on Tuesday night.

"I listened to the community and there were hardly strong voices saying then, or saying now, 'roll it back'. But I acknowledge that there is a stubborn percentage in the community who are captured by dependency on poker machines.

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"It's almost as if our community has done a bargain with the devil. We’re going to live with that small but stubborn level of dependency and — in the club movement especially — enjoy the expansion of leisure and facilities that are funded by poker machine usage."

NSW has more poker machines per capita than anywhere else in the world, outside of gambling destinations such as Macau. Pokies losses, which had been rising through the 1990s, spiked after Mr Carr's liberalisation. Expenditure on the machines rose from $864 per head in 1996-97 to $1256 in 1999-2000, according to the country's most comprehensive statistics on gambling.

Expenditure has since fallen to about $1000, but remains almost twice as high in NSW than in any other state.

Fairfax Media recently reported on the death of Gary Van Duinen, a regular patron of the Dee Why RSL — a club, not a hotel — which rewarded his spending with membership of its "ambassador" club, and had staff deliver cigarettes to him while he played the machines.

Mr Van Duinen was dropped at a patch of suburban bushland by a taxi driver in the early hours of June 1 following a 13-hour pokies binge. His body was discovered six days later.

Charles Livingstone, head of gambling research at Monash University's school of public health, said Mr Carr was "deluded" if he believed a small number of people were affected by pokies addiction.

For every person in the highest-problem category, another six people were affected through the effects of child neglect, domestic violence and other crime, he said.

I acknowledge that there is a stubborn percentage in the community who are captured by dependency on poker machines

Former NSW premier Bob Carr

"This is stuff which I guess we wouldn’t expect Mr Carr to have known in the 1990s but the reality is now we know," Dr Livingstone said.

Mr Carr was asked about the impact of poker machines - particularly in western Sydney, where some of the state's highest losses occur - by an audience member at the launch of his memoir Run for Your Life on Tuesday night.

The long-serving former premier said he was "not an enthusiast" about the decision to allow poker machines into hotels, but he was "struck" by a lack of community resistance at the time.

"Not many people raised it, not many people wanted to express opposition," Mr Carr said.

"There was sort of a consensus emerging across media and the political system that you can shore up a hotel industry that was in trouble, and at the same you're not intimidated by the clubs trying to hold up a monopoly."

Later, Mr Carr told Fairfax Media NSW had had six premiers since he left office in 2005, and "if there's any flaw in the system", voters could choose politicians who want to take action.

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"It’s open to the community to elect a government that will remove poker machines from clubs, hotels and the casino – that’s an option for the community," he said.

"It’s interesting that in the smorgasboard of small parties [in NSW politics], we haven’t had a 'no poker machines' party."

The NSW branch of the Australian Hotels Association declined to comment.